In accordance with conventional practices, bricks are arranged for firing on kiln cars in a plurality of stacks, two or three stacks across the width of the kiln car and two to four stacks along the length thereof. The number of stacks may vary depending on the size of the kiln car. Each stack includes a plurality of double layer courses with each successive course having the headers thereof facing perpendicular to the headers of the preceeding course. Each course conventionally comprises one, two or three layers with each layer containing a plurality of rows and columns, however it is feasible to have more layers per course. The bricks in each column are arranged end to end, and the bricks in the rows are spaced apart from side to side.
The courses on the kiln car do not generally correspond to the courses in the final strapped package as far as the number of bricks in each row is concerned. Therefore, the courses cannot be removed from the kiln car and stacked directly atop each other to form the package because the number of bricks in each row must be changed. It is also true that the number of bricks in each column on the kiln car is not generally the same as the number of bricks in each column of the finished package, however this is for the most part immaterial as the stacker successively receives columns of bricks continuously fed thereinto and forms the bricks into one long continuous columnar package, which is subsequently cut off to a desired number of columns in a well known manner.
Regrouping of the brick courses unloaded from the kiln car into courses having rows of proper number for the final package does present a problem, however, which has been solved previously in a number of different ways. One such solution includes the breaking down of courses from the kiln car into single rows on an off-bearing conveyor, moving the bricks in single file along the conveyor and regrouping by some mechanism at the end of the conveyor into rows of the proper length. The rows are then reformed into courses and stacked in the final package. Another solution to the problem is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,398 wherein a special pick-up head which unloads the bricks from the kiln car and transfers them to the conveyor is peculiarly adapted to rearrange the bricks in mid-air by a shifting of the pick-up gripper elements. Both of these approaches, however require relatively expensive equipment.